Usability evaluation of Islamic websites: elderly's perspective / Nor Rasyidah Haminudin

In general, the number of Muslims' elderly is predicted to grow significantly every year in the near future. Observation of the elderly has shown that by age, the elderly may turn to spirituality and religion when they meet difficult life changing events and experience personal losses. Therefore, instilling hope, offering support and therapeutic interventions such as prayer, thought, morality, artistic expression or professional referrals through the means of ICT technology such as religious websites may lead to spiritual rejuvenation and healing. It is understood that as people age, there are some barriers and difficulties they need to face especially when using ICT technologies specifically browsing the websites. This includes the usability features in the Islamic websites whereby users are always facing difficulties when move around the websites and been lost at the same time. Therefore, this research was conducted to identify the usability problems faced by elderly, identify the design recommendations and identify the usability criteria for the Islamic websites from the elderly's perspectives. The two techniques of research method were employed in order to gather the data which are evaluation of the Islamic websites by conducting user testing and interview sessions. Evaluation sessions were conducted separately among 7 participants. Each evaluation consists of a pre – test phase, the test phase and post-test phase. For the interview sessions, the researcher applied an open ended interview to getting a deep understanding of the topic discussed. Then, the data were analyzed and the results were explained in tables, diagrams and discussions. To conclude, the results obtained highlighted the usability problems identified by the elderly users and several usability criteria for Islamic websites have been identified which are usability, attractiveness, believability and spirituality.